Free Republic

Electoral College advocates see a window of opportunity to eliminate America’s unique presidential election system. They are seizing the moment, working to implement change before anyone realizes what happened. They even think they can do it without a constitutional amendment. National Popular Vote (NPV) is a California-based effort that has been running under the radar. Its proponents ask state legislatures to agree to an interstate compact. By the terms of that simple contract, each participating state would agree to allocate its entire slate of electors to the winner of the national popular vote. This is a change from the current...

One pillar of dogma among leftist activists is that voter ID laws, under which citizens are required to present a valid form of identification in order to cast ballots in elections, amount to insidious and racist forms of "voter suppression." That term deserves to be placed in scare quotes because it's often employed as a catch-all phrase to describe any policy or idea that liberals believe would reduce their chances of winning. Voter ID laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutional, and enjoy overwhelming public support -- including approval from large majorities of racial minorities, who evidently...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz may be able to avoid a 50-state scramble for presidential ballot access by seeking the Libertarian Party’s support. Members of the large national third party, which took more than 3 percent of the vote in 2016, are intrigued by Schultz and might be willing to give him the party nomination in 2020, meaning he would not have to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures as an independent. Schultz has branded himself a “centrist independent” as he teases a potential challenge to President Trump. But he has Libertarians swooning over his concern about the national debt...

SANTA FE — Two proposals moving through the House are aimed at making it easier for New Mexicans to register to vote. Both proposals, sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, passed the House Judiciary Committee on Monday and are heading next to the House floor. One measure, House Bill 84, would automatically register people to vote when they get their driver’s license or ID at the Motor Vehicle Division, unless they opt out or are ineligible. The other proposal, House Bill 86, would allow people to register to vote on Election Day or at early voting sites. Under the current system, the...

Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., represents arguably the most gerrymandered congressional district in the country, and he wants to keep it that way. His latest piece of legislation, H.R. 1 “For the People Act,” would force taxpayers to fund congressional campaigns. Congress has a knack for naming legislation after its opposite intended effect. If you’ve spent more than a weekend in Washington, you know that a bill named “For the People” is likely a far cry from actually benefiting the public. The “Incumbent Protection Act” would be a more fitting name for this piece of legislation. Forcing citizens to fund political...

The League of United Latin American Citizens filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to bar the state of Texas from moving forward with probe that would question the citizenship of nearly 100,000 of the state’s registered voters. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, alleges that Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton are violating the Voting Rights Act by attempting to intimidate voters from exercising their suffrage rights. The complaint asks the court to invalidate the probe and bar the two officials from attempting to move forward with it. “It shows how...

Voter Fraud: When President Donald Trump brought up the idea that noncitizens were casting ballots in elections, the reaction was fast and furious. Such a thing, if it exists at all, is exceedingly rare, we were told. But when one state decided to take a close look, it found something quite different.

‘Yesterday, I spoke for the first time on a subject that House Democrats have crowned their signature effort for this Congress -- H.R. 1, also known as the ‘Democrat Politician Protection Act.’ Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues are advertising it as a package of urgent measures to save American democracy. What it really seems to be is a package of urgent measures to rewrite the rules of American politics for the exclusive benefit of the Democratic Party.’ WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding House Democrats’ proposal to centralize electoral...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

Ranking Member Doug Collins: I’m confident every lawmaker in this room agrees that our democracy depends on protecting voting rights and election integrity. Congress has the authority to prohibit discriminatory treatment in voting based on race or ethnicity as part of its duty to ensure the sanctity of every vote. Unfortunately, this bill actively undermines these goals. The bill before us today federalizes elections in ways that have nothing to do with outlawing discrimination. Instead, it federalizes elections in ways that actually disenfranchise state voters. H.R. 1 would deprive state voters of their own right to determine their state’s voting...

Advancing on gains made last year, Democrats in Virginia are pushing for another big play. After last year’s success pulling in soft Republicans to help pass their agenda, Democrats are eagerly asking for more. This year they’ve announced a bold agenda to import California-style voting laws into the Commonwealth with Governor Northam confident he has all the votes he needs. Northam Announces His Plan to End Voter ID and Usher-in Early Voting California’s voting laws caused a flurry of conservative outrage after the Midterm elections last year. On election night the Republican party was down just 26 seats. But when...

If you were holding out hope that the Democratic majority in the House was serious when leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California pledged to do the people’s work, we’ve got some bad news for you. It’s going to be a long two years. But hopefully, at the end of it, Democrats will have shown enough Americans just why they cannot — and should never again — be in charge. As the crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border worsens and the agencies charged with defending it against illegal immigrants are not being paid, thanks to Democratic refusal to work with POTUS...

Republican leaders in North Carolina’s GOP-dominated General Assembly vowed late Friday to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a state voter identification bill. Earlier Friday, Cooper said no to the legislation, which more than 55 percent of the state’s voters had approved in a recent referendum. The referendum called for the state’s constitution to add an amendment requiring in-person voter photo ID. “Requiring photo IDs for in-person voting is a solution in search of a problem,” Cooper said in a statement.

It's no secret that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) is facing a challenging bid for her former post as Speak of the House. The icing on the cake though? She thinks that it's time for her Democratic colleagues to come together and unite over her potential speakership.On Friday, Pelosi sent a letter to her Democratic colleagues, urging them to "support the nominee of our Caucus for Speaker on the Floor of the House." The Democratic Party's rules require members to vote for whoever the nominee is.Here's a copy of the letter (emphasis mine): November 23, 2018Dear Democratic Colleague and...

Add late-night comic Trevor Noah to the list of ill-informed lefties who consider voter identification a "racist" demand intended to "suppress" the black vote. "Isn't it interesting," Noah said, "how every time Republicans create a voting restriction, it just so happens to disproportionately affect people of the brown-brown? ... Let's be honest, you don't have to say who you're targeting to target someone. You just have to know which rules are likely to hit them the most." Noah echoes the sentiment of then-Attorney General Eric Holder, who in 2014 characterized the call for voter ID laws as an example of...

From decrying illegal immigration to espousing an America First trade policy, from denouncing “angry mobs” to taking jabs at “Crazy Maxine” and “Pocahontas,” few would disagree that when it comes to triggering lefties, President Trump is the ultimate Zen master. And given the president’s almost superhuman ability to drive the Left insane with the push of a few buttons to his Twitter account, one might be forgiven for being surprised that one seemingly ubiquitous Saturday tweet topped all or most of the rest, not by calling someone “Horseface” (although yeah, that was hilarious) or taking another well-deserved jab at Robert...

A Missouri judge on Tuesday ruled that state election officials can no longer spread materials that indicate voters must provide a photo ID in order to cast a ballot, Reuters reported. The news outlet reported that Judge Richard Callahan, who sits on the Cole County Circuit Court, ruled that the materials must also specify other forms of identifications that voters can show. He additionally wrote that state authorities can't require people who are otherwise qualified to vote to sign a sworn statement. The ruling effectively blocked a portion of Missouri's voter identification law one month before November's midterm elections. Priorities...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to toss out an appeals court order that allows North Dakota to enforce its voter ID requirement during the 2018 elections. The request to toss out the order came from a group of Native American residents who are challenging a new state law that requires voters to present identification that includes a current residential street address. The challengers argued the new rule disenfranchises a disproportionate share of the population because many Native American voters live on reservations with no street addresses. The District Court agreed and temporarily blocked the state secretary from enforcing the...

The cast of West Wing wants to make sure you can vote. Republicans want to make it way more difficult for people to vote — the cast of The West Wing needs your help to stop them

A massive coalition of U.S. Christian churches attended by 40 million people wants Brett Kavanaugh to withdraw his Supreme Court nomination. The National Council of Churches says the conservative jurist has "disqualified himself." The group says in a statement that at last week's dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, he showed "extreme partisan bias," demonstrating he lacks the temperament to join the high court. The group says Kavanaugh told "outright falsehoods." And it is criticizing his judicial record on voting rights, health care and other issues on which the group has taken liberal-leaning positions. Kavanaugh is a Roman Catholic who has...